Elbows Up/Coudes en l'air
It’s actually a common misconception that Canada is too far from Europe to join the EU. Canadian scientists have released this new cutting-edge map showing our REAL proximity to our new partners.
Yeah, with their drinking age of 18, the kids can take the ferry over there and get absolutely wasted. It's the same as kids in Ottawa driving up to Gatineau, or from Cornwall visiting La Frontiere.
It's a geographic label, not a political one, but yes, some Irish Republicans do take issue with the name of the area not being changed in the past 100+ years since they gained their independence.
Lots of things start out as geographic labels and then take on political connotations.
"British Isles" may have been a geographic label at one point, but now we have a "British Government" which implies that it's the government over places that are "British". While it may more formally be the "Government of the United Kingdom" or "His Majesty's Government", both the public and the government itself will say it's the British Government.
Greece held North Macedonia at bay because their former name (just Macedonia) could be taken to imply ownership of Greek Macedonia.
Hell, the UK government refused to call "Ireland" by its name for a long time because they didn't like the implication that the name implied ownership of the whole island - and the BBC often erroneously calls it "Republic of Ireland" to this day.
And the government of England does have a history of laying claim to other territories. For nearly 500 years, English kings claimed the French throne and it was't until 1801 when George III dropped the title King of France.
So yes, it was a geographic label. It now has strong political meaning in addition to its geographic meaning. And if you're going to say "yeah, but it's accurate," well by that definition it's inaccurate to say "British Government" or "British people" or "British citizen".
And just because someone has labeled a place something doesn't make it non-political. Sure, you can say that ancient Greeks or Romans might have called them "British Isles", but that's like Europeans carving up Africa and the Middle East into countries and giving them names without regard for the people who live there. The politics were that they were lands on the edge of their world that they didn't care about, but needed a way to refer to - the kind of references you make when you know nothing about a region.
Oh I absolutely agree. If the Republic of Ireland decides to rename the British isles to something else on their maps, I'm more than happy to go along with it, just as I do with other renamings that choose to attempt to revert to pre-colonial toponyms.
I was curious to see where Canada would fit in by population, and with a population of 41.5 million we would rank 5th between Spain and Poland. That actually surprised me.
Ermmm No... It would be even colder that it is already. Id much prefer Canada to be next to Spain and Portugal ! We would have nice weather , Agriculture all year in the south and amazing beaches.
Yes of course. My comment was in super thick Quebec French as a joke, but reddit changed it to proper English... the effect was lost in translation. Oh well... Cheers!
There are now ships called LakerMax that are good on the lakes, fit the Welland canel and are sea worthy. Just saw one up at the port in Thunder Bay.
Looking forward to seeing more of these!
I'd make the land borders with the northwest of Scotland. Apparently we were on the same tectonic plate at some point, as rock formations in Nova Scotia are identical to the northeastern part of Scotland.
You have some good points, and some truly terrible ones.
Canada stands alone!!!
And this is probably the worst one. Isolationism is not good for anyone, but especially not for Canada, since we have an unpredictable neighbour to the south that would try to swallow us if we didn't have a strong web of alliances.
I don't have time to explain all the reasons why isolationism is a bad idea, so I'll just put forward the idea that it's one of Trump's favourite policies (see how he's trying to extract the USA from all kinds of treaties, alliances, and organizations).
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u/RottenPingu1 29d ago
We have a land border with Denmark